DASH: Couldn’t saying “have a good Shabbos”- as in, in the future- alleviate that problem? (FTR that’s my vote and what I usually say.)

And a “tizku lemitzvos” usually gets back a “thanks, and you too!” by me.

Isn’t it $.05 for the cork?

4.05

-0.05

_______

4.00

DASH: Why $0.07?

4.03

-0.07

______

3.96

ETA: Darn it, stupid formatting problems… it looks a lot cooler with the original formatting :).

IsometimesAgree: I don’t know very much about hospice care. For that reason, I remarked only on that story and did not say anything that would indicate that it changed anything I thought about hospice care.

I hope that it was taken out of context.

mitzvahgirl: I just want to apologize for using your thread as an opportunity to vent :). I didn’t realize that what you wanted was the number- I should have thought more before I posted.

I’m glad that someone was able to give you contact details- good luck getting answers to all of your questions!

Okay, great, thanks mods ( and a gut voch!) :).

Goq: I was a bit small and only beginning to develop my memories at the time but yes, I do know what a hanging chad is.

…

I learned it in AP US History. (Badadadum.)

(Have I made you feel old yet? 🙂 )

If you do want something further back, I like David McCullough’s biographies (such as Truman and John Adams) as well as Walter Isaacson’s biography of Einstein (also his Steve Jobs one, but you said you wanted to go back a bit further…)

I also like The Siege by Conor Cruise O’Brien, a nice and balanced account of the rise of Zionism and the State of Israel, if only for the introduction, in which the author tells about his experience as a delegate to the United Nations from Ireland, sitting between the delegates from Iran and Israel. A bit drier than the others but still fascinating.

Not dry at all: The Prime Ministers by Yehuda Avner lived up to all the hype I heard about it. Very interesting account- it’s more about Avner (and his obsession with Begin) than it is a mini-bio of the prime ministers, but his perspective as part of their governments is still worth reading.

Why does it seem like my book recs were blocked? (If it’s something else, mods, I apologize.)

Does a mod somewhere not like my taste in historical literature?

the original was restored

I love The Power Broker (Robert Caro), about Robert Moses, and What It Takes (Richard Ben Cramer), about the 1988 presidential election. I don’t know how old you are, but if you’re old enough to remember the actual election it’s probably more meaningful- to me, it was all ancient history :). Both completely riveting.

Both are also doorstoppers, so they’re great for a nice long Shabbos afternoon.

I read a book about spying during the Revolutionary War, including in New York- it was fascinating (though it was a kids’ book that I read in middle school so I can’t really recommend it- it was fabulously done though). I should check your book out- it sounds like a great read.

Thanks for the rec!

LF- (True but that doesn’t bode well for life expectancy)

funnybone: Happens to be, I agree. My shul is a very quiet shul in general, and I appreciate that. I would not pick a shul that had a lot of talking and disrespect unless I had a REALLY good reason (only one within a twenty mile radius…).

While I personally can’t understand people who talk in shul, if only from a perspective of derech eretz and consideration for others (and you can eliminate “under” in “understand” in order to more accurately get at my true feelings about them, but I digress), to be a bit Reb Levi Yitzchak style here, I was talking about this with my friends and my friend brought up a really interesting point. We’d actually just been learning about the Puritans in APUSH, and it came up how they had so much discipline and were so silent during all their prayer meetings, etc, and why can’t Jews be that way. So my friend pointed out that in some ways, the whole lifestyle was a culture of sort of drudgery- your fate is predetermined when you’re born, there’s no objective to connect with God, it’s basically just wake up, sit through church, go back to bed. There’s no feeling of comfort with God. With Jews, however, perhaps we feel TOO comfortable with Hashem that people think it’s fine to talk while at an audience with the King (though I don’t like the metaphor because it implies that an audience with the king is a rare occurrence), but at least we don’t treat shul as something to dread because of how dull it is, sitting straight and staring at the bima or whatever. We really feel like shul is a place to LIVE, because Hashem’s not only here, he’s everywhere, to paraphrase our favorit Mitzvah Man- shul is a place to express, not suppress, and that’s really vital in achieving dveykus.

That’s not to say I condone talking during shul- it’s disrespectful on levels of both bein adam laMakom and bein adam lachaveiro. However, I know that I personally needed a good way to look at it, and this works for me to at least be like R’ Levi Yitzchok and say, in some way, “mi ke’amcha Yisrael!”

As far as Jews vs goyim, there was a TV program a few years back where the studio first interviewed a college about their problems with gossiping and bullying and then had a segment on a frum girls’ school and their Mishmeres program. I highly recommend giving it a watch.

You can also use nail polish to mark clothing, utensils, etc. Really useful. I use it all the time without it ever going near my fingernails (except, of course, for when I’m sloppy).

I think that ketchup can go on anything. Will I eat it afterwards? Nope.

The absolute ONLY food I ever put ketchup in by my own volition and with the intention of subsequently eating it is the cholent.

My sister, on the other hand, is an advocate of the “ketchup-on-ketchup” school of thought. Her favorite sandwich, until recently, was a burger with ketchup and pickles with extra ketchup and no burger. Sometimes she would add sliced tomatoes for that bit of zing. My brother, following in her footsteps, ensures that it really is worth it to buy those gigantic ketchup bottles at Costco.

What food shouldn’t have ketchup? I don’t personally care, but if my dad ate ice cream with mustard, it’s only a short step downward to ketchup. I should advise him to try it.

Bookworm: Definitely no violence. (For the record, I love the LotR books but turned off the movies because the battle scenes and creatures were disgusting, FWIW.) There is, well, innuendo and some language. I’ve never read Infernal Devices, so I can’t compare, but there are people here who will read Discworld and not Hitchhiker’s Guide. (I’m not sure why, but there you go.)

I think this comes up earlier in the thread- I’d suggest reading through it for a pretty good (if somewhat long…) idea of what Discworld is about.

Check an earlier page of this thread for recommended reading orders. DO NOT start with the first book. The series is NOT linear- there are much better places to start from. I personally recommend starting with either Mort (the Death arc) or Guards, Guards (the Watch arc). But for a better explanation, go a few pages back.

ENJOY!

I’m officially not here for the duration (of what? Probably my life, unfortunately, judging by the amount of schoolwork I’ve got) but as a recent college applicant who got into the college of her choice, I just want to weigh in as I had a similar problem.

I applied to honors programs, where this was very important, but FFG is right, otherwise- if you have the SATs and grades, you’re in at many to most colleges. If your program is very competitive, then yes, this is something to worry about, I guess.

APs are a great idea, though if you’re in twelfth grade already it might be too late if you haven’t taken any yet (though you can certainly write down that you intend to take in May), and if you’re in beis midrash I’m not sure you’re eligible. CLEPs are good in that case, but probably not going to be considered advanced because they’re intended for high school graduates anyway.

In general, there are a lot of good ideas above. One of the first things my teacher told me when I started applying was to write down a list of EVERYTHING I’d done over the last three years and was likely to do this year and then put them into categories. I was able to put things I’d never really thought of as ECs down on that application feeling good about it. Tutoring, playing an instrument, public speaking at school events, being published- I’d never thought that could work.

Try to see what you’ve done and do now- EVERYTHING- and put it all into categories, like hobbies, school events, academic (were you on the honor roll? That counts too), volunteering, etc. Then devise a one-sentence explanation for each one that you think will make you sound unique.

If you’ve been sitting around your whole life playing basketball, then put down basketball as one of your extracurriculars, but there’s not much else you can do. There’s a reason why selective colleges WANT these things.

Hatzlacha!

HaLeiVi: Like I said, I was extrapolating. I heard both the opinions of the Rashbam and the Shulchan Aruch in the context of hypnosis- I guess the Shulchan Aruch doesn’t carry over.

I think that what the Rashbam says, however, still stands (he specifically beings up kishuf).